Jobless become ideological football

HARRISBURG — — Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett waded into a political minefield last week when he suggested that some jobless Pennsylvanians prefer collecting unemployment benefits to going back to work. But he was in good company.

Members of Corbett's own party — including U.S. Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Senate hopeful Sharron Angle of Nevada — have made similar observations.

"You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job that doesn't pay as much," Angle recently told an interviewer. "We've put so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry."

Pundits such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and policy analysts have also weighed in, sparking a potent election year debate over whether extending benefits to the unemployed helps or hurts the economy.

Deciding which side has cornered the market on wisdom largely depends on the ideological ground one occupies. And it's an argument seemingly as old as American politics.

"It's part of an enduring debate about government assistance for the poor and the unemployed," said G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor and pollster at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster. "The debate tends to flare up more when you have moments of crisis."

Critics from the left have latched onto comments by Corbett and others in the GOP as evidence of Republican tone-deafness in a year in which jobs and the economy top the list of voters' concerns.

"The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are going to just sit there. ... I've literally had construction companies tell me, 'I can't get people to come back to work... they say, "I'll come back to work when unemployment runs out," ' " Corbett told a reporter from Pennsylvania Public Radio during a July 9 campaign visit to Elizabethtown, Lancaster County.

Corbett's remarks are "something the Republicans have been saying since time began," said Larry Ceisler, a Democratic consultant from Philadelphia. "The problem with the statement is that everyone knows someone who is unemployed who wants to go back to work."

The problem for Corbett is that his comments "come off as insensitive or ill-informed," Ceisler said. That's particularly true in a business like politics, where perception matters as much as reality.

Corbett's statements netted him a rebuke from Democratic rival Dan Onorato, who charged that Corbett "thinks what's wrong with the economy is that Pennsylvanians are lazy and simply don't want to work. He is simply wrong."

The GOP, meanwhile, says it's just as interested in putting people back to work as Democrats. Republicans also say they want to extend benefits without piling on the national debt.

"The goal is to create jobs," said Michael Barley, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Republican Party. "It should be the goal of every elected official. ... We just don't think it's a smart idea to continue to spend. That's what's gotten us into the trouble we're in now."

Behind the political posturing, however, is a genuine debate among policy wonks over whether the extension of benefits helps or hurts the economy in the long term.

"Cutting off benefits to the unemployed will make them even more desperate for work — but they can't take jobs that aren't there," Krugman wrote in a July 4 column.

He acknowledged that workers receiving benefits are slightly choosier about which jobs to take and that extending benefits would slightly increase the nation's budget deficit. Nonetheless, Krugman argued, current conditions make extending benefits the "right thing" to do.

Mark Price, an economist with the labor-friendly Keystone Research Center, says continuing to pay benefits provides a kind of economic stimulus because it guarantees ongoing spending by an unemployed worker. That money "becomes someone else's income," he said.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on July 8, economist Arthur B. Laffer acknowledged that even though "the unemployed may spend more as a result of higher unemployment benefits, those people from whom the resources are taken will spend less."

"Quite simply, there is no stimulus from higher unemployment benefits," Laffer concluded.

Matthew Brouillette, president of the conservative Commonwealth Foundation, a Harrisburg think tank, agreed.

"Every economist agrees there's some kind of negative effect" from extending benefits, he said. "This cost has to be paid from somewhere. And it's ultimately paid by employers and employees."

While policy wonks debate and candidates spar, the question remains: Which side has the most compelling argument for voters? Ultimately, it will come down to the candidate who can best soothe the nerves of a jumpy electorate.

"It tells you much about the mindset and approach each [side] will use," Franklin & Marshall's Madonna said.